Monday, December 10, 2012

It's no surprise that most enterprises are now taking big data more seriously. But what might raise an eyebrow is how many organizations say they rely on real-time
processing of big data to fuel their business, as well as the number of
companies who say they're thinking about taking their big data to the cloud.

These findings come from a recent survey conducted by GigaSpaces,
which asked 243 IT executives in various industries about their big
data perceptions and plans. GigaSpaces, a provider of end-to-end scaling solutions for distributed application environments and an open platform-as-a-service (PaaS) stack for cloud deployment, conducted the survey online during the fall of 2012.

The first finding shows that enterprises are moving beyond collecting and storing big data and delving deeper.

Among the survey findings:

Some 80 percent of respondents said that big-data processing is a mission-critical function

More than 70 percent said their business requires processing of big
data in fast -- in real time -- either in large volumes, at high velocity, or
both

Only 20 percent of respondents said they have no plans to move their
big data to the cloud, indicating a widespread readiness to consider
the option

The first finding shows that enterprises are moving beyond
collecting and storing big data and delving deeper. Their businesses
require that they process this data in real time as events occur, be
they trades on a stock exchange, alerts from security monitors, or
location changes from GPS devices.

The second finding demonstrates the need for low latency
and high performance in processing big data streams, as these functions
are becoming mission critical and delays or dropped data can't be
tolerated.

Real-time tools

GigaSpaces, which sponsored the survey,
also asked survey respondents what tools they're using to process big
data in real time, and here's where a gap is revealed: only 12 percent
have adopted real-time event processing tools. According to GigaSpaces,
this suggests that most enterprises still have not found the right
solution that offers the ability to handle massive data while also
providing the required speed.

"Most enterprises haven’t yet adopted these real-time event processing tools, they're managing instead with a combination of a NoSQL data store with a Hadoop processing
platform," says Tsipi Erann, marketing communications manager at
GigaSpaces. "It's clear that enterprises haven’t yet found the right
solution that’s dedicated to real-time processing and also fits into
their architecture."

As for moving big data to the
cloud, survey respondents seem eager to reap the cost-savings and
improved agility offered by this model. Only 20 percent of them said
they have no plans to move big data applications to the cloud, while 44
percent have concrete plans or have already started this migration.

Among the 34 percent who said they were unsure about cloud deployments, primary concerns cited
were scalability and security.

It's clear that enterprises haven’t yet found the right solution that’s
dedicated to real-time processing and also fits into their architecture.

GigaSpaces cross-referenced answers to the
question of big data's business importance with answers to the cloud
question and came up with this statement: 80 percent of respondents who
define their big data applications as mission critical to the business
are planning or considering a move to the cloud. The company said it
will use findings from this survey to help shape the direction of its
offerings.

"We understand the importance of giving
customers the right features and will use the input in the creation of
such a solution, whether it’s integration with Hadoop or processing or
transactional management," says Yaron Parasol, product manager at
GigaSpaces.

(BriefingsDirect
contributor Cara Garretson provided editorial assistance and research
on this post. She can be reached on LinkedIn.)You may also be interested in: